German general (1888?1944)
Friedrich Olbricht
(4 October 1888 ? 21 July 1944) was a German general during
World War II
. He is known for being one of the plotters involved in the
20 July Plot
, an attempt to assassinate
Adolf Hitler
in 1944.
Olbricht was a senior staff officer, with the rank of lieutenant general. He was secretly in contact with most of the leaders of the
resistance
. They briefed him on their various plots and he placed sympathetic officers in key positions. Olbricht quietly encouraged field commanders to support the resistance. By late 1943, his office was the centre of Resistance plotting, under
Claus von Stauffenberg
.
[1]
Had the
20 July plot
to assassinate
Adolf Hitler
been successful, Olbricht would have assumed the position of minister of war in a post-Nazi regime.
Early life
[
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]
Olbricht was born on 4 October 1888 in Leisnig, Saxony, to Richard Olbricht, a mathematics professor and director of the
Realschule
(secondary school) in
Bautzen
.
[2]
Career
[
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]
Olbricht successfully passed the
Abitur
(university preparatory school exit examination) in 1907, subsequently accepting a commission as a Fahnrich (ensign) with Infantry Regiment 106 in Leipzig. He fought in World War I, was promoted to captain and chose to stay in the Treaty of Versailles-decimated military (the
Reichswehr
) after the war.
[2]
Olbricht was assigned to the Reich Defense Ministry as leader of the Reichswehr's Foreign Armies Bureau in 1926. After the
Night of the Long Knives
raid, he was able to save several of those arrested from execution by finding or creating positions for them in the Abwehr.
[2]
Olbricht was appointed chief of staff of the 4th Army Corps stationed in Dresden in 1935, an assignment that lasted until 1938 when he was promoted to commander of the 24th Infantry Division.
[2]
Olbricht has the distinction of being one of the few officers who supported General
Werner von Fritsch
, the commander in chief of the German armed forces who was accused of homosexuality in January 1938.
[2]
After von Fritsch’s resignation, it was discovered that the charges had been invented, based on the contrived testimony of a man whom some say was recruited by Himmler.
[3]
The tale had been concocted as part of Hitler's plan to gain control of the armed forces?which he did.
[2]
During the German
invasion of Poland
in 1939, Olbricht commanded the 24th Infantry Division and was awarded the
Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
. On 15 February 1940, Olbricht was promoted to General of the Infantry. He was appointed Chief of the General Army Office (
Allgemeines Heeresamt
) in the Army High Command (
Oberkommando des Heeres
). He was furthermore made Chief of the Armed Forces Reserve Office (
Wehrersatzamt
) at the
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
.
Operation Valkyrie
[
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]
Starting in the winter of 1941?42, Olbricht developed the plan for
Operation Valkyrie
, a General Staff plan which was ostensibly to be used to put down internal unrest, but was in fact a blueprint for a
coup d'etat
. Together with the resistance circles around Colonel-General
Ludwig Beck
,
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler
and Major-General
Henning von Tresckow
, he worked to find a means of assassinating
Adolf Hitler
and bring down the Nazi regime. In 1943, he asked that Colonel
Claus von Stauffenberg
come to work at his office. Stauffenberg would later be the key person in the assassination attempt, with the task of planting the bomb near Hitler.
On the day of the attempted coup, 20 July 1944, Olbricht and Colonel
Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim
initiated Operation Valkyrie by mobilizing the
Replacement Army
. It eventually became clear the briefcase bomb had failed to kill Hitler however, so the plan to seize key sites in Berlin using units from the reserve army, began to falter. Many consider one of the factors which prevented the coup, was the failure of troops to gain control of communications into and out of Berlin. Hitler and his commanders in the Wolfsschanze were able to broadcast a speech after the coup, which led to the quick demise of the coup as a whole. As a result, the Nazi leadership was able to regain control, using its own loyal troops, within a few hours.
Arrest and execution
[
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]
At 21:00, Olbricht was arrested at his headquarters in the
Bendlerblock
by soldiers from the Berlin garrison. Later that evening, Colonel-General
Friedrich Fromm
held a hastily arranged
court martial
, supposedly in an attempt to protect himself from being exposed as a silent conspirator. Olbricht, Quirnheim, Stauffenberg, and his aide
Werner von Haeften
were then taken outside to the courtyard and executed by
firing squad
, against Hitler's orders to take the would-be assassins alive (those who were captured alive received more painful and prolonged means of execution). Olbricht was the first of the four to be shot.
Awards
[
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]
In popular culture
[
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]
He appears in all dramatisations of the July 1944 plot, being played by
Rolf Hoppe
in the third
Liberation Film
Direction of the Main Blow
(1970),
Wolfgang Buttner
in
The Plot to Assassinate Hitler
(1955),
Erik Frey
in
Jackboot Mutiny
(1955)
Michael Byrne
in
The Plot to Kill Hitler
(1990),
Rainer Bock
in
Stauffenberg
(2004) and
Bill Nighy
in
Valkyrie
(2008).
[6]
See also
[
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]
References
[
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]
Citations
[
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]
- ^
Dieter K. Buse and Juergen C. Doerr, eds.
Modern Germany: An Encyclopedia of History, People, and Culture, 1871-1990
(2 vol. Garland, 1998) 2:724?25.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Gregory, Don (October 30, 2018).
After Valkyrie: Military and Civilian Consequences of the Attempt to Assassinate Hitler
.
- ^
Hoffmann, Peter (Oct 8, 1996).
The History of the German Resistance, 1933-1945
. Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press.
- ^
Scherzer 2007, p. 161.
- ^
Matikkala 2017, p. 516.
- ^
IMDB entry
Bibliography
[
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]
- Hoffman, Peter.
History of the German Resistance
(MIT, 1977).
- Matikkala, Antti (2017).
Kunnian ruletti: Korkeimmat ulkomaalaisille 1941?1944 annetut suomalaiset kunniamerkit
[
The Roulette of Honour: The Highest Finnish Orders to Foreigners 1941?1944
] (in Finnish). Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.
ISBN
978-952-222-847-5
.
- Schrader, Helena.
Codename Valkyrie General Friedrich Olbricht and the plot against Hitler
; Haynes Publishing 2009 (
ISBN
978-1844255337
).
In German
[
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]
- Georgi, Friedrich (1989).
Soldat im Widerstand. General der Infanterie Friedrich Olbricht
; 2. Aufl., Berlin u. Hamburg.
ISBN
3-489-50134-9
.
- Helena P. Page,
General Friedrich Olbricht. Ein Mann des 20. Juli
; 2. Aufl., Bonn u. Berlin 1994 (
ISBN
3-416-02514-8
) (Note the author of this book is better known under her married name
Helena Schrader
.)
- Scherzer, Veit (2007).
Die Ritterkreuztrager 1939?1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbundeter Streitkrafte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives
[
The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939?1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives
] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Militaer-Verlag.
ISBN
978-3-938845-17-2
.
External links
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